VACCINES DO NOT 'CURE' VIRUSES. Aaaargh.
This started out as a response to a friend in Facebook, but it came out with enough vitriol that I just wouldn't have felt right not posting it to LJ.
Unfortunately the above item has become a common trope in a lot of sci-fi/"medical" fiction/drama - 'Doctor, you've infected yourself with the horrible *disease of the week*!' 'Yes, but I have created a vaccine with which I can cure myself!' This particular "AAARGH!" was prompted by the movie 'Doomsday' (don't watch it unless you're looking for a rather gory 'Mad Max' meets 'Ladyhawke' meets 'aaaargh my brain!' experience).
To sum up - a deadly virus breaks out in Glasgow, Scotland in the first decade of the Millennium (it's cool, it's after 2001 so I can say that). The outbreak and the virus itself (appears to be maybe some kind of REALLY nasty hemorrhagic thing, judging from the symptoms) are so bad that they (i.e. the government and military of the U.K.) quarantine the entire country. Of Scotland. With a big wall and huge guns and a minefield and a no-fly zone and...
Anyway, in 2035 there's an outbreak of the same horrible virus in London. However, satellites have detected signs of human life in Glasgow, most notably near a military lab where research had been conducted on curing the virus, which gives the U.K. government hope that they found a cure and the survivors are the beneficiaries of said cure. Why it would take almost thirty years to find them...but I digress.
So the British government assembles a crack team to go into Glasgow and find a cure, if any - and not come back, if there isn't one. You know, the crack team designed to be whittled down one-by-one as the movie progresses? Yes, you've met most of them before. No, they don't last very long.
They go, they get attacked by 'Road Warrior'-style punk cannibals, don't find a cure, blah-blah-blah, crap happens, blah-blah-blah, they find Malcolm McDowell (whom I ADORE as an actor), who was the virologist doing the research, and he tells them there IS no cure, the people still alive are just the 1% (or whatever) who were naturally immune. Oh, and then he tries to kill all of the protagonists, because he has made himself the medieval King of northern Scotland. Don't ask.
ANYWAY, at the end of the movie, the protagonists hand the virologist's daughter over to the government, saying that since she's immune, "SHE'S your cure, you can use her blood to make a vaccine."
Which is the half-crap, half-true part that drove me bananas. YES, she is naturally immune; YES, that means she probably has antibodies against the virus in her blood that MIGHT help create a vaccine, IF there's been no (or only minor) mutation in the virus over the past thirty years and the London strain is the same as the Glasgow strain, but that's by no means certain.
Plus, how much vaccine do they think they're going to be able to produce from one person? Admittedly, I'm no expert on vaccine production, but if they're relying solely on the antibodies in this girl's blood, well, she's only got about 6 quarts of blood in her. Even if they kill her and take it all, that will only immunize what, maybe a couple hundred people? Or are they going to go into Scotland and start "harvesting" survivors? Gruesome, yes, but something the film REALLY needed to address.
Even if you DO manage to create a vaccine from her blood, you've still got a blood-and-saliva-borne virus with about a 90% transmissibility and a 99% mortality rate within seven days (I'm assuming here, as the movie never states these figures - but the Prime Minister gets some infected blood on him, and decides to eat a bullet rather than wait the two days to see if his people actually return with a 'cure'), which has (as of the middle of the film) already infected the entire center (or would it be centre?) of London. We're talking a few million people, NONE of whom this vaccine will help because even if you began production immediately, it would be weeks, bare minimum, before you could get a vaccine to ANYONE. Plus, they're already infected, so what good is a vaccine going to do them, anyway?
As a writer I just HATE it when an otherwise engaging movie just yanks my suspension of disbelief away because of something so blatantly STUPID. And this particular fallacy (vaccines=instant cure) has appeared in more TV shows and movies than I care to think about. I think the main reason this one bothered me so much was that I was actually enjoying the film (Mad Max and Ladyhawke ripoffs aside, it's got some fair action sequences in it), and then in the final moments, it was like the author decided to shut off his brain and said "Screw it, vaccine cures it!"
Oh, and don't get me started on the car (a Bentley, I believe) stored in a crate for thirty years, with a thirty-year-old battery, a tank full of thirty-year-old gas, AND thirty-year-old tires, that still manages to start IMMEDIATELY and then proceeds to drive our heroes 100+ miles at a sustained 80MPH without a problem. That's a trope for another time.
Ah well. The one good thing is, since I recognize the error, I'll never do it myself, right? :)
/end rant
Unfortunately the above item has become a common trope in a lot of sci-fi/"medical" fiction/drama - 'Doctor, you've infected yourself with the horrible *disease of the week*!' 'Yes, but I have created a vaccine with which I can cure myself!' This particular "AAARGH!" was prompted by the movie 'Doomsday' (don't watch it unless you're looking for a rather gory 'Mad Max' meets 'Ladyhawke' meets 'aaaargh my brain!' experience).
To sum up - a deadly virus breaks out in Glasgow, Scotland in the first decade of the Millennium (it's cool, it's after 2001 so I can say that). The outbreak and the virus itself (appears to be maybe some kind of REALLY nasty hemorrhagic thing, judging from the symptoms) are so bad that they (i.e. the government and military of the U.K.) quarantine the entire country. Of Scotland. With a big wall and huge guns and a minefield and a no-fly zone and...
Anyway, in 2035 there's an outbreak of the same horrible virus in London. However, satellites have detected signs of human life in Glasgow, most notably near a military lab where research had been conducted on curing the virus, which gives the U.K. government hope that they found a cure and the survivors are the beneficiaries of said cure. Why it would take almost thirty years to find them...but I digress.
So the British government assembles a crack team to go into Glasgow and find a cure, if any - and not come back, if there isn't one. You know, the crack team designed to be whittled down one-by-one as the movie progresses? Yes, you've met most of them before. No, they don't last very long.
They go, they get attacked by 'Road Warrior'-style punk cannibals, don't find a cure, blah-blah-blah, crap happens, blah-blah-blah, they find Malcolm McDowell (whom I ADORE as an actor), who was the virologist doing the research, and he tells them there IS no cure, the people still alive are just the 1% (or whatever) who were naturally immune. Oh, and then he tries to kill all of the protagonists, because he has made himself the medieval King of northern Scotland. Don't ask.
ANYWAY, at the end of the movie, the protagonists hand the virologist's daughter over to the government, saying that since she's immune, "SHE'S your cure, you can use her blood to make a vaccine."
Which is the half-crap, half-true part that drove me bananas. YES, she is naturally immune; YES, that means she probably has antibodies against the virus in her blood that MIGHT help create a vaccine, IF there's been no (or only minor) mutation in the virus over the past thirty years and the London strain is the same as the Glasgow strain, but that's by no means certain.
Plus, how much vaccine do they think they're going to be able to produce from one person? Admittedly, I'm no expert on vaccine production, but if they're relying solely on the antibodies in this girl's blood, well, she's only got about 6 quarts of blood in her. Even if they kill her and take it all, that will only immunize what, maybe a couple hundred people? Or are they going to go into Scotland and start "harvesting" survivors? Gruesome, yes, but something the film REALLY needed to address.
Even if you DO manage to create a vaccine from her blood, you've still got a blood-and-saliva-borne virus with about a 90% transmissibility and a 99% mortality rate within seven days (I'm assuming here, as the movie never states these figures - but the Prime Minister gets some infected blood on him, and decides to eat a bullet rather than wait the two days to see if his people actually return with a 'cure'), which has (as of the middle of the film) already infected the entire center (or would it be centre?) of London. We're talking a few million people, NONE of whom this vaccine will help because even if you began production immediately, it would be weeks, bare minimum, before you could get a vaccine to ANYONE. Plus, they're already infected, so what good is a vaccine going to do them, anyway?
As a writer I just HATE it when an otherwise engaging movie just yanks my suspension of disbelief away because of something so blatantly STUPID. And this particular fallacy (vaccines=instant cure) has appeared in more TV shows and movies than I care to think about. I think the main reason this one bothered me so much was that I was actually enjoying the film (Mad Max and Ladyhawke ripoffs aside, it's got some fair action sequences in it), and then in the final moments, it was like the author decided to shut off his brain and said "Screw it, vaccine cures it!"
Oh, and don't get me started on the car (a Bentley, I believe) stored in a crate for thirty years, with a thirty-year-old battery, a tank full of thirty-year-old gas, AND thirty-year-old tires, that still manages to start IMMEDIATELY and then proceeds to drive our heroes 100+ miles at a sustained 80MPH without a problem. That's a trope for another time.
Ah well. The one good thing is, since I recognize the error, I'll never do it myself, right? :)
/end rant